Overwhelming Fan Support Convinces CBS to Resurrect Jericho
In the TV world, there are a ton of shows that get cancelled every year, and the truth is, most of them deserve to be put down. But every now and then, the fans revolt and show the networks that they’ve dispensed with something valuable. This would seem to be the case with CBS’ Jericho, a series about a small town in Kansas that becomes isolated from the rest of the world after a series of nuclear attacks on major U.S. cities. Ratings plummeted in the wake of the show’s midseason hiatus, and after the first season’s cliffhanger finale, CBS decided to pull the plug. Angry fans started up a letter writing campaign, and also started sending cans of peanuts to the network’s offices in tribute to a character’s exclamation of “Nuts!” after being asked to surrender. This week, CBS announced that they have overturned their decision, and will bring the show back as a midseason replacement in 2008.
CBS President Nina Tassler posted the following message on the Jericho Message Board: “Wow! Over the past few weeks you have put forth an impressive and probably unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime time television series. You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard. As a result, CBS has ordered seven episodes of “Jericho” for mid-season next year. In success, there is the potential for more. But, for there to be more “Jericho,” we will need more viewers… We will count on you to rally around the show, to recruit new viewers with the same grass-roots energy, intensity and volume you have displayed in recent weeks.” Somehow I doubt fans would have received the same response if the show had been airing on Fox. I think the fact that fans were able to save their show (albeit temporarily) is a pretty cool thing. My only problem is that I don’t know if Jericho really deserved to stay on the air! I tuned in from the start but lost interest after a few episodes. There is only room for so many serialized mysteries on people’s PVRs, and this one didn’t make the cut for me. But I suppose with all this support out there, maybe I should give it another chance too.
Comments (4)
To be honest this is rather a shock to me. By this I’m referring to that the show was going to be canned. I mean, it was also playing on CTV for a while and I think that Space had it on twice a week, re-airing the new episode twice every week. So that they were going to can it really seems strange. Then again I thought that ‘The Nine’ was going to be a great show and it vanished without a trace when I turned around for two seconds.
I’m glad that Jericho is coming back though, as I was assuming it would before this news from you that it was getting the ax. Jericho is sort of one of those shows you have to watch every week, though perhaps not as much as LOST or HEROES. I found that the main reason I stopped watching for a while in the middle was because I couldn’t find when it was on. Let’s be honest the whole mid-season break this past year was collectively stupid for Jericho, Heroes, LOST, and every other show that joined in. Mind you… I don’t think waiting until January or February 2008 is a better idea… but hey, the shows coming back, that’s good. I wonder if they’ll factor in sales on the first season’s DVD and order a proper season like 16-23 episodes.
Posted by Aaron Moore on June 7th, 2007If only Fox had the same heart for rabid (Arrested Development) fans that apparently CBS has for theirs… *sigh*.
Posted by Zedd on June 7th, 2007not to mention Futurama
Posted by Mike on June 7th, 2007I watched the first six or seven episodes of Jericho and it just couldn’t keep my interest. It is a shame that Arrested Development was cancelled the way it was, but at least there’s hope for Futurama. I found this quote from Matt Groening on gotfuturama.com:
“I was frustrated when it got cancelled, but Fox, 20th Television is the one who came back and said, ‘Would you like to do a DVD movie?’” Groening recalled. We said, ‘Let’s do two’ and they said, ‘Well, why not three?’ and we said, ‘Well, why not four?’ and they said, ‘Okay, four’ and then that’s it.”
After this, Comedy Central won a bid to air the films as new “Futurama” episodes. “We’re writing them as movies and then we’re going to chop them up, reconfigure them, write new material and try to make them work as separate episodes. Chopped up is an indelicate way of putting it but we are doing them as movies and then we are reconfiguring them and writing new material and narration and this that and the other so that they’ll stand on their own as episodes.”
Posted by Rian on June 7th, 2007Leave a Reply